Issue Archive

Piezoelectrics, which can change mechanical stress to electricity and back again, are widely used in many fields, including computer hard drives, medical ultrasound, and sonar. Even so, understanding exactly they work is less widespread. A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, in collaboration with Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada, believes they've learned why one of the main classes of these materials, known as relaxors, behaves in distinctly different ways from the rest and exhibits the largest piezoelectric effect.
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A team of researchers and engineers at the Swiss Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Center for Neuroprosthetics and SSSA (Italy) have developed a revolutionary sensory feedback that allowed an amputee named Dennis Aabo Sørensen to feel sensory-rich information, in real-time, using a prosthetic hand wired to nerves in his upper arm.
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Miniaturization in microelectronics is beginning to reach its physical limits, say researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, who are seeking new methods for device fabrication. They have discovered that one method may be the DNA origami technique in which individual strands of the biomolecule self-assemble into arbitrarily shaped nanostructures.
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Scientists from SLAC, Stanford University, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Advanced Light Source, grew sheets of an exotic material in a single atomic layer and measured its electronic structure for the first time. They discovered it’s a natural fit for making thin, flexible light-based electronics.
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Cyborgs that combine machine systems with living organisms to have extraordinary abilities are already a reality say researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This is especially true with medical implant technology.
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Researchers at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, a leading technology university, say they have developed electronic components that are so thin and flexible they can even be wrapped around a single hair without damaging the electronics. This may open up new possibilities for ultra-thin, transparent sensors, including to create smart contact lenses, which could be used to measure intraocular pressure to test for glaucoma, among other uses. The new thin-film transistors adhere to a wide range of surfaces and adapt perfectly, they say.
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Question of the Week

This week's Question: Last week, Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, said that the electric car maker would introduce autonomous technology, an autopilot mode, by this summer; the technology will allow drivers to have their vehicles take control...